In a divided opinion, a federal appeals court has decided to uphold the firing of a veteran security guard following an incident with a psychiatric patient. The security guard, Anita Loyd, is an African-American woman who was 52 years old at the time of her dismissal. She had worked as an employee at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland/Trinity Hospital in Pontiac, Michigan for 25 years, Business Insurance reports.
On June 16, 2011, Loyd was dispatched to the room of a female psychiatric patient who was agitated and combative. Medical staff needed help restraining the patient. According to the ruling issued by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, “Loyd told the patient that she could leave the hospital if she had been admitted for a drug-related or alcohol-related (as opposed to a psychiatric) reason. Loyd’s actions exacerbated the patient’s condition to the point where the patient tried to pull an IV out of her own arm.” Two additional security guards were then brought in to successfully restrain the patient without the help of Loyd.
Loyd was terminated in June 2011 following an internal investigation and was replaced by a 39-year old African American woman. Loyd filed a suit the following year in U.S. District Court in Flint, Mich., charging the hospital with age, race and sex discrimination. Loyd denied the hospital’s claim that she failed to restrain the patient or that the woman became more agitated as the result of Loyd’s actions. The District Court dismissed the case saying Loyd could not show the hospital’s, “proffered reason for firing her was intended to disguise unlawful discrimination.” Loyd then appealed the ruling.
The appeal’s court ruled that Loyd failed to make her case regarding discrimination and pointed specifically to the hiring of an African-American woman as her replacement. In addition, it cited several instances where Loyd recieved written warnings from her former employer for leaving work without excuse and without permission from her supervisor. The appeal panel ruled 2-1 that the hospital made a reasonable assessment of available evidence before terminating Loyd and was within its rights to end her employment. The age discrimination claim was dismissed due to a lack of evidence.
